Encyclopedia of

Death Instinct

The pioneering Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud was a person with few
illusions about human nature and civilization. In fact, he had been
relentlessly exposing what he saw as the hidden strivings and conflicts
beneath the mask of civilization. Even Freud, though, had not expected
such a catastrophic violation of the values of civilization. Entering the
sixth decade of his life, Freud had observed too much self-destructive
behavior both from his psychoanalytic patients and society at large. He
had grown dissatisfied with some of his own theories and felt the need to
address more decisively the human propensity for self-destruction. His
version of the question of the times became: Why do humans so often act
against their own best interests—even the desire to survive?

It was in 1920 that Freud offered his death instinct theory. This was an
uncertain time both in Freud's own life and in European culture.
World War I, "The War to End All Wars" (unfortunately,
misnamed), had finally concluded. Both the victorious and the defeated had
experienced grievous loss. Parents had been bereaved, wives widowed, and
children orphaned. Many of the survivors of combat would never be the same
again, physically or mentally. In Austria and Germany the devastation of
war and the terms of the surrender had produced not only economic hardship
but also a debilitating sense of hopelessness and frustration.

Thoughtful people found even more to worry about. World War I seemed to be
much more than a tragic ordeal for all involved. In the minds of many
observers, this protracted period of violence and upheaval had shattered
the foundations of Western culture. Western civilization with its
centuries-old traditions appeared to have been dealt a deathblow.
Classical concepts of honor, beauty, glory, truth, and justice had been
mutilated in the killing trenches and the casual brutalities of war. The
visual, musical, and performing arts were contributing to the unease with
disturbing new forms of expression. Science was increasingly seen as a
threat to humanity through such routes as dehumanizing workplaces and
ever-more lethal weaponry. The life sciences, through the theories of
Charles Darwin, the nineteenth-century English naturalist, had already
sounded one of the most troubling notes:
Homo sapiens
can be regarded as part of the animal kingdom. Humans were primates with
superior language and tool skills. Where was the essence of
humankind's moral being and the immortal soul? The physical and
spiritual devastation of World War I seemed to have confirmed the
gradually building anxieties about the future of humankind.

Freud introduced his new theory in
Beyond the Pleasure Principle
(1920). Most philosophers and psychologists had assumed that people are
motivated by the desire to experience pleasure and avoid pain. This was
not, however, always the case. Some of Freud's patients, for
example, were masochistic—seekers of physical or emotional pain.
The more he thought about it, the more connections Freud perceived between
masochism, suicide, war, and the inability to love. Was there something in
the very nature of humans that prompted them to override the
self-preservation instinct and bring about harm both to themselves and
others?

Life and Death: Eros and Thanatos

Freud came to the conclusion that humans have not one but two primary
instincts. He called the life-favoring instinct
Eros,
one of the Greek words

Sigmund Freud claimed each human had a death instinct, called
Thanatos, the Greek word for "death." This Greek
relief sculpture shows Thanatos positioned between Aphrodite and
Persephone, who are thought to be competing for the soul of Adonis.

BURSTEIN COLLECTION/CORBIS

for "love," and the death instinct
Thanatos,
the Greek word for "death." It was characteristic of Freud
to invoke Greek literature and mythology, but it was also characteristic
of him to ground his ideas in the biomedical and physical sciences. He
suggested that all living creatures have an instinct, drive, or impulse to
return to the inorganic state from which they emerged. This
todtriebe
(drive toward death) is active not only in every creature, great or
small, but also in every cell of every organism. He pointed out that the
metabolic processes active in all cells have both constructive (anabolic)
and destructive (catabolic) functions. Life goes on because these
processes work together—they are opposing but not adversarial.

Similarly, Eros and Thanatos function in a complementary manner in the
personal and interpersonal lives of humans. People seek out new
experiences, reach out to others, and expend energy in pursuit of their
goals. Eros smiles over ventures such as these. There are times, though,
when humans need to act aggressively on the world, protect their
interests, or withdraw from overstimulation and exertion and seek
quietude. Thanatos presides over both these aggressive and risky ventures
and the longing for "down time." Humans function and feel at
their best when these two drives are in harmony. Sexual love, for example,
may include both tenderness and thrill-seeking.

Effects on Children

Unfortunately, though, these drives are often out of balance. Children may
be punished or shamed for their exploratory and aggressive, even
destructive, actions (e.g., pulling a caterpillar apart to see what is
inside). A particular problem in Freud's generation was strong
parental disapproval of exploratory sexual expression in children. As a
consequence, the child might grow into an adult who is aggressive and
destructive where affection
and sharing would be more rewarding—or into a person with such
thwarted and convoluted sex/death impulses that making love and making war
are dangerously linked.

Suicide and Homicide

Suicide and homicide often have roots in a confused and unbalanced
relationship between the life and the death instincts. The destructive
impulses may be turned against one's own self (suicide) or
projected against an external target (homicide). Wars erupt when society
at large (or its leaders) have displaced their own neurotic conflicts to
the public scene.

Later Views of the Theory

Death instinct theory has not fared well. In his influential 1938 book
Man against Himself,
American psychiatrist Karl Menninger stated that he found this theory
helpful in understanding suicide and other self-destructive behaviors.
Critics have dominated, however, both within the circle of psychoanalysis
and the larger professional and academic community. Two of the criticisms
are especially powerful: that the theory relies on vague and outdated
scientific knowledge, and that it is seldom very useful when applied to
specific individuals and situations. For the most part, counselors,
therapists, researchers, and educators have found that they could get
along just as well without making use of the death instinct theory.

Nevertheless, there is still vitality in this failed theory. Evidence of
confused connections between sexuality and destructiveness remains
plentiful, as do instances in which people seem to be operating against
the principle of self-preservation of self or others. Furthermore, within
the correspondence between Freud and the German-born American physicist
and philosopher Albert Einstein, included in the 1932 book
Why War?,
was an ancient remedy that has yet to be given its full opportunity.
Einstein had independently reached the same conclusion as Freud:
"Man has in him the need to hate and to destroy." Freud
replied with the emphasis on Eros: "Psychoanalysis need not be
ashamed when it speaks of love, because religion says the same:
'Love thy neighbor as thyself.'"